Write protecting USB drive

This is a discussion on Write protecting USB drive within the Tech Board forums, part of the Community Boards category; Recently when I used my usb drive on another computer the files on my usb drive got infected by worms.
...

Write protecting USB drive

Recently when I used my usb drive on another computer the files on my usb drive got infected by worms.
Is there any way to make an usb drive inherently write-protected like floppy disks with any software so that worms won't be able to infect it.
I searched for this but all solutions depend on tinkering with target computer(infected PC) registry. Utilities like thumbscrew also seem to give a similar solution.
Is there some kind of utility which would make the usb drive write-protected at my PC and does not involve tinkering with target computer's registry.
Does anyone know of any such utility or is it even possible to do this?
I heard some usb drives have write-protection toggle like those in floppy disks but mine doesn't have this.

Until you can build a working general purpose reprogrammable computer out of basic components from radio shack, you are not fit to call yourself a programmer in my presence. This is cwhizard, signing off.

Without a switchm, any solution will be software based, which means tinkering with every computer that uses it, and of course the worms are free to ignore the software protection.

So the answer is NO, buy one with a switch.

Actually I searched and found certain unfamiliar for-a-fee software which claimed to do this perfectly. But I didn't want to end up buying some crap which is either fake or a virus itself!
Anyway as you say the better solution would be to use a hardware lock,i guess.

The only way you can actually achieve this without hardware support would be to use a (filter-)driver that declines writes to that particular device. It can certainly be done, but it's not entirely trivial.

Damn USB thumb drives are like heroin needles. People pass them around like crazy. And because most people's systems are configured for autorun when a thumb drive is plugged in, viruses and other things can spread too easily.

EVERY thumb drive should have a hardware write protect switch. I can't believe some don't.